The global paint industry suffered aserious impact, how the Chinese market performance

On November 2, the 2022 Asia PacificInternational Coating Industry Development Conference, jointly sponsored byChina Paint Industry Association and Puyang Municipal People's Government andhosted by Puyang Industrial Park, was held in the form of online livebroadcast. At the meeting, a number of industry experts said that the globalcoatings industry has suffered a serious impact due to the new crown pneumoniaepidemic and geopolitical conflicts, there is great uncertainty in the Europeanand North American coatings markets, and the market forecast is not optimistic,and the Asia-Pacific region continues to be an important growth pole for theworld coatings industry, of which the Chinese coatings market continues to bean important growth point.

"We expect the total European coatingsmarket to decline by 4% this year and to be flat or down 1% next year."Marten van der Meer, a senior consultant at Olber Consulting Ltd, said that thereal estate industry in Europe and the US will see a downward trend due toinflation and rising interest rates, which will have a collateral effect on theconstruction-related coatings market such as decorative coatings, industrialwood coatings and coil coatings. In addition, Europe is affected bygeopolitical conflicts to appear energy crisis, some high energy-consumingenterprises may be forced to shut down production, such as chemical productionenterprises, will also have a greater impact on the global market.

In contrast, the Asia-Pacific coatingsmarket is developing rapidly. Sun Lianying, president of China Paint IndustryAssociation, pointed out that currently, the Asia-Pacific region has more than46% of the global share of paint production value and about 60% of the globalproduction, far ahead of other regions. Yoshiko Norizuki, head of theInternational Division of the Japan Paint Association, also said that theindustry is recovering from the impact of the New Crown Pneumonia outbreak, andthat Japanese paint production has not yet returned to pre-epidemic levels, buttotal sales have exceeded the same period in 2019 due to an increase in productunit prices.

"China's annual paint production hasreached more than 38 million tons, an increase of 110 times compared to 1978.Since 2009, when China became the number one producer and consumer of paints,it has ranked first in the world in terms of paint production for 13consecutive years. At present, China's paint production has accounted for 1/3of the world, making the Asia-Pacific region an important growth pole for thedevelopment of the world paint industry." Li Shousheng, President of theChina Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, said.

This is also confirmed by the latest listof the top 30 Asia-Pacific coatings released by Olber Consulting Ltd. There are12 Chinese paint companies in the list, one new company compared to theprevious edition, with the highest ranked company, Sankeshu Paint Co.(6thplace), having total sales of US$1.7 billion in 2021, up 27% from 2020, makingit one of the fastest growing paint companies in Asia.

Pang Guanglian, Deputy Secretary General ofPetrochemical Federation, pointed out that the Regional Comprehensive EconomicPartnership Agreement (RCEP), which officially took effect in January thisyear, has amplified the effect of China's paint exports. From January to Augustthis year, China's paint exports 148,000 tons, up 5.6% year-on-year; imports127,000 tons, down 4.3% year-on-year; exports are higher than imports by 9.9percentage points, and the annual paint exports are expected to exceed 220,000tons, which is expected to set a new record. 1 to August, paint exportsamounted to $566 million, up 15.7% year-on-year; imports amounted to $1.052billion, down 4.4%; exports have exceeded half of the imports, and the growthrate is 20.1 percentage points higher than the imports.

Pang Guanglian suggested that the paintindustry should grasp the development opportunities brought by RCEP, strengthenthe open cooperation in the region, carry out overseas layout, integrateresources to improve the quality of domestic paints, comprehensively enhancethe international competitiveness of China's paint products, and expand theinternational market share and influence of China's paints.